


a blue sky glimpse

by bog gremlin (tomatocages)



Series: soulmates (in color) [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Cuddling & Snuggling, Episode: s02e01 Across The Universe, Episode: s02e08 The Blade of Marmora, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22963750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomatocages/pseuds/bog%20gremlin
Summary: Like most people, Shiro's had the color-corrective soulmate procedure. There's no reason to even think about it in the midst of a galactic war.But here's the thing: Keith isn't most people
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Series: soulmates (in color) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1983692
Comments: 52
Kudos: 262
Collections: Shiro Birthday Exchange 2020





	a blue sky glimpse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MelMeikoMeiLing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelMeikoMeiLing/gifts).



> Written for MelMeikoMeiLing and VLDExchange’s celebration of Shiro’s birthday 2020. I really loved your prompts, so I hope you enjoy this soulmate (grey/colors) au.

***

Brutal  
for you to parade  
  
in a body  
in the same  
room where I dream you.  
\- [Brutal](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/55071/brutal), Andrea Cohen

***

The thing about soulmates is—they went out of fashion a couple of generations ago. And not everyone has one, which is probably why a treatment was developed to begin with, because wandering around without a soulmate was stigmatizing at best and an outright disability at worst (no one calls it a cure, but: if the shoe fits).

Which is to say, it’s not a concept that’s generally top of mind for Shiro. He’s more concerned with, oh, the fact that he's recently been conscripted in a battle for the fate of the universe.

If that’s a mistake, well, Shiro doesn’t allow himself to feel terrible about honest mistakes. It never solves anything, and he’s not a cruel person; all he can do is avoid repeat errors in favor of new and exciting ways of fucking up. Especially now that he’s nominally in charge of a group of teenagers, their semi-sentient warships, and a woefully equipped rebel outfit.

It’s a relief to be busy. The gaps in between Shiro’s memories are deep and treacherous, and he is terrified of probing them too closely; they hurt. And he’s grateful for Keith’s presence, even though from the looks of him, the last year isn’t getting a ringing endorsement from either of them.

All that being said, it hits Shiro hard when, in the midst of a teambuilding session, the topic of soulmates comes up. Shiro had the prenatal therapy that most kids get nowadays, unless they’re born into some kind of archaic 21st century Earth-type poverty and lack basic medical care, and he was born seeing color. So were Lance and Hunk. He’s never known anything different.

The whole soulmate thing sounds very romantic, if you’re Lance, and deeply weird, if you’re anyone else. Who wants to live in a world of greys until, maybe, you meet your better half? How would that even work?

“I wonder how many people thought they were just having a seizure or something,” Pidge wonders. She didn’t have the therapy, but her soulmates are her entire extended family, which happens sometimes. A lot of old stories are about lovers, but just as many are about twins, or cousins, or parent and child. “It’s the kind of thing that seems like it would cause more problems than it could solve.”

Keith frowns. “It doesn’t happen all at once, though.”

Shiro’s chest goes tight as Hunk and Lance and Pidge all hone in on Keith.

“What,” Pidge says, “do you mean?”

The attention seems unwelcome. Shiro knows Keith well enough— _knew_ Keith well enough—that he knows it is unwelcome. Shiro also knows that Keith doesn’t see in color, has never seen in color, except for the couple of times the Garrison had him try out filtered lenses when he was flying simulations. But maybe this is another thing that’s changed since he’s been away.

“I, uh,” Keith stutters. “I can see red? The color. Not all the time. I think it’s red, anyway. I figured it was from my lion.”

“ _You_ don’t see _color_?!” Lance shrieks, as though this news is on par with anything else they’ve encountered since the whole _legendary defenders of the universe_ thing.

“I’ve never heard of that happening,” Allura says, “but I’d also never heard of not seeing in color until you meet an arbitrary person before I met all of you.” Alteans don’t have the soulmate-color thing, and Allura has vacillated between being culturally sensitive and being deeply weirded out by the concept.

“It’s not arbitrary,” Hunk corrects, “but it’s—kind of just folklore now, or maybe old-fashioned. Like getting an eradicated disease or having a congenital anomaly.”

“Maybe you’ve got a personality only an evil space alien could love,” Lance suggests, warming on the topic.

“Lance,” Shiro says, “that’s enough.” He draws the line at this type of teasing, though; Lance doesn’t mean what he’s saying, but he also doesn’t know what the lack of color implies, what it says about the kind of life Keith had growing up. Hunk picks up on it, though—he’s sensitive, and that’s a quality Shiro can use on this team—and veers the conversation on to another topic, away from soulmates and implied poverty and toward adaptive technology.

Keith looks grateful at the intervention, but Shiro is not prepared to keep this on the back burner.

***

Later, he corners Keith and confronts him about it.

Keith flinches a little, like he’s fighting a headache. “It’s not just red anymore,” he finally says. “I’m starting to see other colors, too. Not all the time and not all at once, but they just— _buzz_ underneath everything. It’s new. I didn’t see this before.”

This is too much. Shiro reaches out and palms the nape of Keith’s neck and pulls him closer, close enough that Keith just sighs and slumps against Shiro’s chest, burying his face against Shiro’s sternum. He’s running hot, or hotter than usual; it's hard to tell. Keith’s always warm and the castle runs a few degrees shy of comfortable at any given time. Shiro normally appreciates it, especially since he’s gained more muscle and lost corresponding body fat. But Keith looks so miserable it’s impossible to derive even a sliver of pleasure from it.

“It’s probably the lions,” Shiro says, trying to soothe. He doesn’t really think it’s the lions, but—the alternative is too shocking to contemplate.

“Shiro,” Keith says, muffled. “I don’t care, but. I don’t feel great.”

***

Whenever Shiro used to have a muscle spasm, he spent the rest of the day feeling like warm garbage. The only things that made him feel remotely better were, in order: an incredibly specific series of yoga stretches, followed by a ridiculous mug of tea and lying on an extra-firm body pillow. If Keith’s color headache is anything like the tension headaches Shiro used to get—he hasn’t had once since before the launch, which: Shiro is not thinking about that—then Keith might benefit from some sort of similar therapy. But for as grand and technologically advanced as the castle is, it lacks amenities like comfortable pillows or mugs of tea. Shiro’s hesitant to suggest a bout in the training room: Keith spends too much time in there anyway, and rapid activity requiring hand-eye coordination seems like a poor choice.

He does have an idea, though.

“Keith,” Shiro says, the same day Keith graduates from red and starts seeing blue and purple, “stop by my quarters after you’re done with training, I want to run something by you.” In Shiro’s expert opinion, he sounds completely normal: calm, a little authoritative, warm.

Keith’s shoulders migrate up to somewhere near his ears. Perhaps Shiro’s command had darker undertones than Shiro intended, but it’s Keith. He’s always reacted to unexpected situations with a combination of anxiety and defensiveness. Shiro is just unused to being in that category.

He reaches out and rests his flesh hand on Keith’s shoulder and presses down, gently, until Keith manages to relax. Shiro keeps his hand there, as if he can hold Keith’s ever-present tension at bay.

“I want to go over color spectrums with you,” Shiro says. “You’ve got great instincts, but the lions don’t have the same grids as Garrison ships. I think if we can pin down what colors you’re seeing, you’ll be unstoppable out there.”

“We’ll be unstoppable,” Keith corrects. He’s smiling a little, just at the corner of his mouth; Shiro missed that while he was away. “Yeah. I’ll stop by.”

When Keith does stop by, he comes prepared: Hunk made him a little deck of pantone cards, for review purposes. They all have flat gray backs, and there are two of every color, fifty-six colors in all. Hunk tested them out by playing a particularly convoluted version of the game War with Pidge in the common area; it was performative, but it got the point across, and allowed Keith to accept the gift in the spirit with which it was meant.

Mostly Keith treats it like a child’s memory game, picking up facedown cards and trying to find the matches. It’s not exactly what Shiro had in mind for the evening, but they play a few rounds while sitting on the floor, half-leaning against the bed. He doesn’t let Keith win, because that defeats the purpose, but Shiro has to work for it. Keith’s a quick study, and even if he can’t see the whole color spectrum, he’s got a good memory and his grasp of saturation has always been, by necessity, impeccable. Shiro has hopes of training him to read the castle coordinates, both to give Keith more authority within the team and to give Shiro a break.

Keith doesn’t complain, but he does answer when Shiro asks how the colors are progressing. It’s slow, like a disease; Keith still cannot see yellow, and green and orange are a mystery. Shiro wonders if everything looks like a bruise or a wound—red and blue and purple radiating and washing out familiar black and white and grey. Keith says it’s mostly just vivid, which Shiro assumes is his way of saying “disorienting.”

The game’s not restful, even if it is fun, and soon enough Shiro swipes the deck off the floor. “All right, hotshot, playtime’s over,” he grins.

Keith pretends like he hasn’t been fighting eyestrain for the last thirty minutes—doboshes. “Getting tired?”

“ _You’re_ getting tired,” Shiro says, like an adult. “C’mon, Keith, take a break.” He hoists himself up onto the bed and beckons Keith up to join him; they used to sit close like this sometimes, back home, and Keith had always looked shocked and pleased by the attention. Shiro hopes that’s still true now.

Maybe Keith hesitates longer that he might have _before _,__ but he still kicks off his boots and crawls up onto the narrow bunk. Shiro barely has to put a hand out for Keith to slump against him.

There’s the expected shuffling of elbows and knees until Shiro’s managed to arrange Keith so he’s tucked up between Shiro and the wall, kept cozily back from the edge of the bed. It’s a calculated move. Shiro has two ulterior motives, one being to experience any kind of human touch and the other to coax Keith into letting down his guard, just a little. Shiro’s finding that he feels calmer when he can manage this.

Keith holds himself stiff for a few moments before capitulating and going limp, pressing his tender head hard against Shiro’s shoulder blade.

“Forgot how cuddly you get,” Keith mumbles. He already sounds like he’s half-asleep.

“It’s a sign of a superior being,” Shiro says, loftily. “Also, you’re warm.”

“Mhm, funny how that works.” A pause, and Shiro thinks he may have lost Keith to sleep, until—”Shiro, what color are your eyes?”

“Grey,” Shiro answers. “You’ve always seen them the way they are.”

“Good.” Keith sounds so fierce and tired. “I feel like everything’s overloaded now, everything just—jumps around.”

“You’d better spend more time with me,” Shiro says, not really joking. “I’m monochromatic, what could be more soothing than that?” He’s black and white all over, from his hair to his eyes to the clothes he’s wearing. It’s got to be a rest for Keith’s eyes, only having to process the new distraction of Shiro’s actual skin tone.

Keith doesn’t respond; he’s asleep. Shiro’s starting to feel too warm with the proximity.

It’s a small bed for two men. He’s sweating a little along his spine, and he probably should have taken off his vest before settling in, but he’s slept in less comfortable positions and he’s not about to move now. Keith has a tendency to sleep deeply and bonelessly, but he wakes at the slightest provocation. Whenever he stayed over at Shiro’s place, Shiro would wake him on accident every time he got up to meditate and hit the gym.

Neither of them really sleep much. Of the paladins, he and Keith are older and more aware of the stakes they’re facing, and Shiro’s had enough psychological testing in his life to know he’s negotiating a host of traumas. Keith’s the same way, and adding the color vision on top of whatever happened when Shiro was—away, it’s common for either or both of them to rattle around the castleship late into the night, looking for answers and avoiding nightmares.

Tonight, though, Shiro feels that usual tension unravelling. He sighs gustily and the breeze of it ruffles Keith’s shaggy hair, and then Shiro falls asleep, too.

***

Shiro has a lot of time to think, after they get thrown through that wormhole. He spends a lot of the time thinking about Keith; the alternative is not great.

It’s funny that most people consider Keith a hothead. Keith’s doing a masterful job of not panicking over the comms as he navigates from his unresponsive lion to where Shiro is waiting, pretending that the glowing wound on his side isn’t bothering him and that he’s not at all worried. Keith’s focused on solving the problem in front of him: tunnel vision. That’s his besetting sin, really.

Of course, all of Shiro’s musings are cut short when he finds himself surrounded by a pack of creatures that give every indication of wanting to eat him. Keith saves him, which is becoming a habit, and Keith surprises both Shiro and himself when Black allows him to pilot her to the rescue.

“I asked permission,” Keith says, later, after scrounging for fire fuel and splitting a slightly squashed energy bar with Shiro. “I knew I wouldn’t be fast enough, and….” He trails off, staring into the fire. Shiro waits him out: he taught Keith how to be patient because he’d had to teach himself the same lesson first.

Keith says, “Shiro,” and then, halting, “I was afraid.”

“So was I,” Shiro answers. It’s a statement, not a confession, but he feels closer to Keith anyhow. They aren’t touching; it hurts too much to lean on anything, even if the comfort of having Keith closer would outweigh the pain. “I’m proud of you for coming anyway. Prouder.”

“Of course I came for you,” Keith says. This is why Shiro believes in Keith, believes that he’ll make a good leader: that matter-of-factness, the deep well of faith Keith has in the need to take care of those around him.

“See anything interesting?” Shiro changes the subject, gesturing towards their little fire. It’s almost cozy. Keith takes him seriously, of course, and responds.

“Is that yellow?” The flames are bright and sharp against the flat rock of the surrounding landscape, and the light they throw up onto Keith’s face, turned away from Shiro, is as soft as the coming realization. “In the fire. Under the red.”

It is. Shiro’s always loved how fire looks and moves, the way it shifts along the spectrum and turns gold and green and orange. If Keith’s seeing that now, Shiro’s happy for him: it’s the last of the primaries. If Keith can see yellow, green isn’t far off.

“Yeah, buddy,” Shiro tells him. “When did that happen?”

“Black must have showed me,” Keith says, thoughtful. “I think I started seeing it when I was flying to you. It’s settling down now. It’s pretty.”

“‘S nice color,” Shiro agrees. He feels oddly bereft; this can only be a good thing, a development that brings Keith even closer to supplanting Shiro as leader of Voltron. He doesn’t know why the ever-increasing field of Keith’s color vision feels like a loss.

It’s probably just his wound affecting him. It hurts; Shiro is so, so tired.

***

He asks Black about it, later, once she starts trusting him. It’s not a question Shiro can put into words, one that he even wants to put into words, but that’s the benefit of a sentient warship intelligence: Black gets the gist.

Keith found the colors on his own, Black intimates; he didn’t look through her eyes, she says, which feels like a portent of things to come. Great; it’s not like Shiro has enough incomprehensible mysteries on his plate, what’s one more? It was just a question.

(The problem, Shiro thinks, is that if Keith is seeing color on his own, it means that he’s _not_ on his own, or won’t be on his own any more. Of course Shiro wants that for him; Keith was alone for a long time, until Shiro came along. Shiro just doesn’t know—doesn’t want—is _afraid_ —)

He doesn’t mention the conversation to Keith; it would do more harm than good. Instead, Shiro keeps inviting Keith to his quarters after hours and playing that fucking card game, over and over. Shiro watches Keith as he studies the cards, savors the expressions that move across his face as Keith puts names to what he is, for the first time, seeing.

“My pop used to tell me about them,” Keith tells Shiro one night, after Shiro’s taken the cards away and herded Keith up onto his bunk. It’s their routine: Shiro likes holding Keith like this, and rubbing the tension from Keith’s shoulders, and talking to each other in the dark so Keith’s eyes have a chance to rest. “About the colors. He liked purple best—the kind that’s inside Black, on her screens.”

“He saw color?” Shiro asks. Keith doesn’t often talk about his father. “I didn’t know if you didn’t because….”

“I don’t know if he always did,” Keith says. “But I know when he and my mom—the house was pretty isolated. I was born there.”

He was born there, and his mother didn’t have medical care. “Did she see color?”

“I don’t know.” Keith’s going quiet again, not because he’s tired; Shiro can feel the tension creeping back into Keith’s body, and he hugs Keith closer in apology. Keith takes in a breath; his rib cage expands with the inhale, and Shiro feels the press of it against his own chest as Keith holds the air in, counting the way he does when he’s trying to work through something.

“Sorry,” Shiro offers. Then, “Purple, huh?”

“It’s pretty,” Keith offers.

“I’ll tell Black you think she’s pretty,” Shiro laughs a little, and Keith lets out the breath he’s been holding. If that tension flows into Shiro, well, that’s fine; Shiro will hold this for him.

***

Watching Keith during the Trials is—if Shiro thought being injured in the fight with Haggar was painful, then he did not yet know pain. Kolivan’s impassivity, his repetition of the phrase “knowledge or death” sets Shiro’s teeth even more on edge. Keith is fighting. Shiro doesn’t know why he cannot help.

At least everything is cast over in purple-blue-grey; that’s the spectrum that gives Keith the least amount of trouble. It’s similar enough to the monochrome he’s used to, Keith told Shiro once, so the fight is grueling and horrible to watch, but at least Shiro knows that Keith doesn’t have to deal with the visual overload of yellow and green and orange flaring around him on top of everything else.

Shiro feels violated when Keith’s suit shows a version of himself—a false version, a lie, a trap.

“Your friend desperately wants to see you,” Kolivan says, and if he sounded any more satisfied or _knowing_ , Shiro would punch him in the face, diplomacy be damned.

“You’re killing him,” Shiro snarls, unable to tear his eyes away from the version of himself that is haunting Keith, and from the ghost of Keith’s father and a rising desertscape in every color that Keith still struggles to see. Shiro feels like he’s the one dying, and he’s not even in this fight; Shiro knows what it is, to be close to death, and he is not exaggerating.

If Keith dies, Shiro knows that he will never recover. No knowledge is worth this kind of pain.

(Shiro’s always seen in color; he’ll never know if or when he meets his soulmate. But he thinks—he _hopes_ —)

Later, sequestered in the lion and helping Keith tend his wounds, Shiro wishes he _couldn’t_ see color, just so he didn’t have to look at the gash on Keith’s shoulder; there’s so much blood. It is so red, and there are bruises besides. It looks like a negative photograph of the night sky, Shiro thinks helplessly; Keith’s skin all pale and the bruises purpling out over his body in wide, terrible arcs.

“You’re okay,” Shiro croons, cleaning sweat and blood off of him. It’s tacky, half-dried from the way the suit wicks moisture away from the skin, and it takes a long time before Shiro’s satisfied.

He coaxes Keith closer so he can slump against Shiro’s chest, so Shiro’s holding him up more than anything else. He cradles the nape of Keith’s vulnerable neck with his prosthetic hand, laying it against Keith as though it could be armor. “You didn’t have to do that, Keith, but you fought so hard—”

“Shiro,” Keith whispers, dryly, like he doesn’t have enough strength to sob. “I didn’t know—”

“Don’t.” He doesn’t want to pull back so he can look Keith in the eye, because if he does, Shiro fears, Keith will think of it as just another rejection. “It doesn’t matter if you’re part-Galra. You’re Keith, just Keith, you aren’t any different to me than you were yesterday and the day before.” Shiro’s glad, fiercely, for all the nights Keith has fallen asleep in Shiro’s bed. Keith’s body remembers that comfort, and it feels indescribably _good_ when Keith shudders and relaxes against Shiro, lets Shiro hold him close.

“‘M okay,” Keith sighs. “I’m fine.”

“I’m not,” Shiro tells him, even though he knows they need to get moving, knows that this new alliance really shouldn’t wait much longer. “I’m so angry that they used me against you. It wasn’t right.”

Keith rouses a little at that and pulls back so he can look at Shiro, face to face. He sounds fond when he says, “Shiro,” when he says, “you know it’s not about that—being right, or fair. That’s why I had to do it.”

“I know,” Shiro sighs. “Keith, you’re the strongest person I know.”

“You must not have looked in a mirror recently.” Keith slumps back down and doesn’t complain when Shiro carries him to the tiny bunk behind Red’s cockpit.

Keith doesn’t say anything else after that, just sets about stripping the rest of the Blade suit off and putting his paladin armor back on now that Shiro’s bandaged his shoulder up.

Shiro pulls himself away and goes to sit in the pilot seat, closing his eyes and thinking at Red the way he thinks at Black when he wants to communicate. He’s not shocked when Keith’s lion responds. Shiro has his suspicions about what Keith means to him, and he feels reckless with it.

Red’s angry and a little satisfied, not by the violence meted out but by its result. It’s not like talking to Black at all, Black who is patient and canny; Red is obvious in comparison, and the feel of her voice is like being jabbed with acupuncture needles. Red lets him fly most of the way back, long enough for Keith to get enough rest that he looks less like he’s gone through—what he’s gone through.

Shiro’s grateful; he’s a good pilot, and it’s not the kind of flight that takes all of his attention, but he needs something to do or else he’ll vibrate out of his own skin.

Keith joins him at the controls just before they make contact with the castleship. Shiro cedes the seat to him; even if it wasn’t Keith’s lion, Keith really ought to sit down.

“Ready?” Shiro asks. He grips the seatback and leans into Keith’s space, ostensibly to check Red’s screens. The castleship looms bright ahead of them, glowing white and cyan and vibrating a little, the colors pulsing brighter than Shiro remembers; it’s probably a side effect of how dark it was, in the headquarters of the Blade of Marmora.

Keith doesn’t answer; Shiro hails Allura and, once Keith’s got Red on a course to dock in her bay, moves back so Keith can stand. Shiro understands the silence: Keith’s not ready to think about being Galra, about the spectrum between Kolivan and the Blade and Zarkon and the empire. That isn’t what Shiro’s asking about, not at all, but he understands why it’s at the forefront of Keith’s mind.

He’s not touching Keith, but he wants to.

Later, Shiro thinks: later. They have time.

**Author's Note:**

> This got away from me.


End file.
